Week Forty-Eight: Following Christ

Area: Arvin Spanish Group

Companion: Hermana White

This week has been really good. We have been working hard down here in Arvin and teaching everyone that we see. It has been really fun getting ready for Christmas during these past couple of weeks. I feel like I have been seeing the influence of Christ during this last little bit in great abundance!

This week, we had a lesson with one of our investigators about tithing and fasting. It was all going pretty well and he agreed to live both of the laws. When we started explaining about fast offerings, Hermana White accidentally said something about giving away the money that we eat. It wasn't any stranger than any of the other mistakes that we make in Spanish, but Hermana White and I looked at each other and started laughing. Once we started, we couldn't stop for a couple of minutes. I am sure that our investigator and our member thought that we were going crazy, but they were patient while we got ourselves together. In the end, it turned out to be a pretty good lesson.

The Navarro Family. They are super cute!

Things have been winding down to the end of Hermana White's mission. Next week, she will be going home and I will get a new companion. That being said, she went on the departing missionary temple trip last Friday and I went with Hermana Luquette and Hermana Badger to live the trio life for a couple of hours. It was a really strange experience! I think that we spend a lot of time as missionaries working to get ourselves used to life in a two person companionship that when we change to working in something other than that, it totally throws us off. Despite the strangeness, it was really fun. We spent a couple of hours working in their area, which happens to be the only Hermana area in the entire mission that I have not served in. It was super cool to spend some time looking around and talking to people there.

We have been working a lot with our recent converts to try and help them to work on their family history. With one in particular, we have been going over a lot to try and help her to find a name to take to the temple. She was able to find some family information about her grandmother, so we went over to help her to set up an account on family search and to print out the name. When we got there, we discovered that she didn't have a computer, so we had to try and use her phone to set it all up. The screen wasn't big enough to let us see all of the web page and all of the instructions were in Spanish, so we were struggling a little bit. To make it all worse, her birth information was inputted wrong in the church records, so we had to find out how to work with that. About every ten minutes, we would have a break through and get a little bit closer to putting in the name. Finally, after two hours, we were able to get her a name to take to the temple. At the end, she told us that we have to learn how to do things step by step, but sometimes they are the steps of an ant. I am a little worried to have to use technology again someday!

Our district. It's a little hermana heavy!

This week, we have been showing a lot of people the new Christmas video from the church. I have been thinking a lot about the example of Jesus Christ. We can all learn so much from studying the life of Christ and doing the things that he did. I am so grateful for the opportunity to change and become better every day of my life through Jesus Christ and to be able to serve the Lord literally all day long, every day. It is such a blessing to be a missionary!

Well, that is just about it for the week. I hope that you all are doing good things and that Christmas preparations are going well for you. I love you all so much. Have a good week!

Hermana Blau

The dusty air in Arvin every time the weather changes. Scary!

Week Twenty-Two: Yo Estaba Muy Cerca a una Cerca

Area: Esperanza Ward
Companion: Hermana Van der Toolen

This week has been kind of slow, but we have really been seeing miracles! I think that I have learned more about how the Lord will always help us in this work this week than I have during any other week so far.

The most eventful thing that happened during the beginning of this week was that we finally won the victory over the miles! All of the walking and biking worked out and we were able to finish out the month of May with exactly 1100.4 miles. It was pretty impressive (if I do say so myself). The only problem is that the temperature has finally started to resemble what I imagined California summers would be like. During the days, it is 100 degrees or more with no clouds in the sky. When the wind blows, it feels like a blow-dryer! I can't remember if I shared this last week, but I have finally started to get sunburned. The difference here as opposed to Missouri is that my sunburns are turning into tans. It is the strangest thing.

One funny story. We were walking along the street the other day and I got really close to a fence. It turned out that the top of the fence was made of something sharp, so I cut my arm up. It wasn't super bad, but it started to bleed a little bit. Instead of taking one of Hermana Van der Toolen's band-aids, I decided that it would be a good talking point. We knocked on a door and I showed the lady my bleeding arm and asked if she would give me a band-aid. While she was helping me out, we were able to talk to her. She wasn't super interested, but I was able to tell her that I got cut because "yo estaba muy cerca a una cerca". [Translation: I was very close to a fence. (In Spanish the words for  "close" and "fence" are the same.)] That made me chuckle for the rest of the day.

Because it is so hot during the day, we have been trying to set up visits with less active members. It has actually been working out pretty well. We get to come in from the heat and the sun and we also get to teach people. There are a lot of people in the Esperanza ward who haven't been contacted for a long time, so it has been good to be able to see them. Hopefully, we will be able to start helping them to come back to church.

This week we had another lesson with Adriana. I don't know if you remember her, but she is the one that we almost dropped because we thought that she was Bible bashing us through text message. It turns out that she is super prepared. She loves learning about the Gospel and reading in the scriptures and she always keeps all of her commitments, which is a breath of fresh air. Her biggest problem at this moment is with coming to church. She works in a hotel as a maid and works pretty much all the time. We went over to teach her about the importance of the Sabbath day. When we asked her if she thought that her boss would give her Sundays off, she said that she didn't think so. Apparently, her boss is a bit of a jerk and doesn't like changing people's schedules. It is also hard because Adriana really needs to work to help to support her family. We shared 1 Nephi 3:7 with her and talked with her a little bit about faith and the importance of church. Afterwards, we asked her if she would be willing to go in and talk to her boss, and she said that she definitely would because going to church is so important and she wants to know the truth. It was super cool. She has so much faith. I think that my experience with Adriana has really gone to show me that God is always going to make sure that his prepared children receive the Gospel!

We received the biggest surprise of this week yesterday. There is a family that the Hermanas in this area have been teaching for a really long time named the Liconas. They have had all the lessons and have been coming to church regularly for a long time and all of them really want to be baptized. The only problem is that the parents aren't married. For a long time, they weren't able to get married because of a lack of money to buy the marriage license and some relationship problems. Recently, they haven't been able to get the license because they can never get time off of work to go to buy the license during the week. Yesterday, we texted the father to ask if we could come over on Sunday night to teach a lesson with them and he said that we should come over on Monday night because he got a day off of work. It turns out that they are going to go and get their marriage license today! After that, there is nothing stopping them from getting baptized. We have been fasting and praying for them to be able to get the license for a long time, and it looks like it is finally going to happen!

This week has been a little bit interesting, but I have definitely been able to see the hand of the Lord in this work. I am so glad that I am a missionary and am able to see all of the positive changes that the Gospel brings to people's lives. I love this church!

I love you all and I am hope that everything is going well at home. Keep cool and have fun at home!

Hermana Blau

Week Seventeen: An Answer to My Fast

Me with the Jehovah's Witness Umbrella.

Area: Littlerock Spanish Branch
Companion: Hermana Gonzalez

Missionary life is super strange and sometimes, it is super discouraging, but I have noticed during this week that it can also be really rewarding. I love being a missionary and getting to help the people in this area come closer to Jesus Christ and change to be better people.

This week has been pretty good as far as finding people goes. One of the really cool people who we have started to teach actually talked to us last week. I don't know if you remember the lady who asked us to come back and do more service for her, but we were able to go back and help her out. When we went, we started out by cleaning her kitchen and then she took us to her dining room table. She had a bunch of bills from about the past five years that were all in a pile. She asked us to help her to organize them. The only problem is that I couldn't really understand the way that she was telling us to arrange them because all of the instructions were in Spanish. After sitting around feeling a little useless, I decided to start putting the papers in piles according to year. When I finally got my pile all sorted, I looked around and realized that Hermana Gonzales and Mari (the lady who we were helping) had been sorting them according to company. Oh well. She really appreciated the help and asked us to come back the next day to teach her a lesson. It went super well and she asked a lot of good questions. I guess that service really is a good way to find people to teach! Who would have thought?

The other day, we were knocking on some doors in one of the neighborhoods where we normally go. As we were going down the street, we knocked on the door of a family of Jehovah's Witnesses. The mom came out to talk to us. She asked us what we believed and so we started talking about the Restoration of the Gospel. She stopped us right away and started grilling us for about 30 minutes about the Bible and our beliefs in God. It was super intimidating, especially because it was in English and Hermana Gonzalez doesn't really feel very comfortable talking when we teach in English. That meant that I was pretty much going up against the lady alone. I finally just invited her to pray and ask for her answers about our church that way. Hopefully, her heart will be softened.

That same day, about two doors down, we knocked on another door and a man came to the door. When we introduced ourselves, he told us that he was a Jehovah's Witness and that he wanted us to tell him about our beliefs. I thought that it was going to be just like the lady who we talked to before, but he was actually really nice. While we were talking in him, it started to rain. I don't know why, but I feel like any time it rains here, it pours. The guy let us borrow his umbrella, so we are going to go back and bring it back to him later.

This week, we have been working really hard to get our investigators to come to church. It is always really frustrating when Sunday comes around and the people who we thought were really progressing don't come. Because this Sunday was fast Sunday, I decided to fast for all of our investigators and for their church attendance. When the service started, I looked out into the crowd while I was playing the piano and nobody was there. I felt so let down and I thought that maybe my fast didn't work. After the opening hymn, Chris and Stephanie (the two children who have started coming to church with their mother, but who's father doesn't really want them to go to our church) came. Imagine my surprise when I saw that they were accompanied by their mother AND their father. I don't know if that means that he is 100% supportive, but I think that that is definitely a big step towards him letting them be baptized. It was a miracle and I am positive that it was an answer to my fast. I was just so happy and thankful to the Lord for his help in this work!

This week, I have seen the hand of the Lord in the work and the way that he is able to help us in our righteous endeavors. I love being a missionary and being able to bring the Gospel to others. I hope that I can become a better instrument in the hands of the Lord and that I will be able to find those people who are prepared!

I love you all at home and I hope that everything goes well for you this week. I am praying for you and I can feel your prayers for me being answered as well. Thanks for everything!

Hermana Blau